The Lounge

I am unsure where to place this. But here I go anyway with a question. How does the radioisotope thermoelectric generator use temperature difference to produce electricity? I read up on wikipedia but became more confused, things like phonons?? I can't visualize how the electrons would move. I was thinking about thermodynamic equalibrium ad the hot electrons flowing to the colder ones or even an electron density difference but I know I am missing something. Any help appreciated.

For the bast two or three days I have been unable to connect to SFN (not getting DNS entry) and today I'm only able to connect intermittently. Is anyone else having this problem and what is the cause?

So I decided that being overwhelmed by both geckos and beer bottles was a little too chaotic for my house. Since the bottles couldn't scurry away, they were the unlucky ones to be pitched into the night. I took them out to my bin and as I walked back I noticed something writhing about on the ground in the dark. I thought, oh maybe it is an injured lizard. But no it was a death adder, and nothing with 'death' in its name can be good for you. Adding can be tiresome, but that's not really important. I must have stepped over it twice as I was walking out, so I was pretty damned lucky. I thought about catching and moving it away from my house, but it looked like it was goi…

I just realized I have OCD and how it plays a rold of me running around in circles without accomplishing anything. You see, sometimes I feel like I should be just reading and skimming fast, getting what I can, and that way I won't get bored. Then sometimes I feel like I wanna go at it slowly to get as much as I can, but I do intend to get bored. What happens is that I keep thinking about these and end up accomplishing nothing! Yelp and post your regimens. Peace

As you can see, I just got to the rank of Meson. What is a meson in the scientific world? I knew what a quark was, but not a meson.

Hey all of you guys all around the World I just wanna to wish you a very Happy and Successful new year ahead..... These warm wishes are all the way through India.... Take very Good Care and Enjoy..... God Bless..... Post your wishes here:-)

hello. i'm paul. how do i get into the sfn chatroom? i have been in there before but when i click on sfn chatroom now i just get a grey box (whereas before i got the grey box with a few options inside it). any help would be appreciated. cheers.

I want to buy ones........the thing is I'm not sure is which should I buy, the one that's totally solid/concrete or the other one that's with hard rubber........ I think I should go for a rubber, what ya think?

I went to see Dinosaur Jr last week, and had a great time...incredible guitar playing and very, very loud. I was just wondering what really memorable gigs anyone had been to, and if you can, why that particular gig was so exceptional. Was the atmosphere electric, was there nakedness et.c et.c A few I will never forget are Bjork at the Phoenix festival, David Bowie at Glastonbury, Orbital at the Alexandra Palace and Hyper at the Glade Festival. They all just blew me away, the sound quality, stage presence, and atmosphere at the time was unforgettable...there's so many more I could mention, but these stick out the most for the moment.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bzt3HTPOCrs have fun. i sure did. some random quotes: "This is science, this is scientific, we know that" "A car requires 9 liquids to run: gas, brake fluid, motor oil, water, air" "And so i realized people were dying around me, and surgeries and cutting out 8 inches of the cole-on" "And the transpa...transplants" (He's right, i know when i needed a heart transplant i said no way, Coral calcium please!) "When you look at the pesticides, the herbacides, the genocides" "Understand, that nutritional books, mostly are selling a particular product. I sell no product..... You need to buy my book" "Your body needs 9 things to function e…

I am here to announce his death recently...i wonder if he has done any achievements to benefit the scientific community? Any input anyone?

I want to install latexrender for my VBB Forum like your forum. But I dont know how to do. Can you help me? Thank you so much

I've been looking into starting to play the guitar but I don't know which one to buy. I don't want a super expensive one but I also don't want it to be a piece of crap. Someone said that http://www.zzounds.com/item--SQU330800 was good but I want a second opinion before I go spend $280. I'm open to all suggestions because I really am clueless when it comes to this.

I possess a basic understanding of QED; however, I do not understand what the wavelength of the force carrying photon of a permanent magnet is? Any insight would be appreciated. Kind regards, Mark

I have DSL and my internet is really slow. When I try to download something I get a transfer rate of about 20KB/sec. My computer is new so thats not the problem. Does anyone know what is happening that is causing such bad performance?

Since there was a bit of interest in this idea I thought I'd post a thread to let people post 'pilots' until, or to justify, the creation of a seperate section on the site. These could be excerpts from a larger piece you've written or a stand alone story. Notes: -There's a 2000 word limit. -Make sure you have used correct spelling and grammar so it's easy to read. -Keep the profanity and themes within the normal SFN levels. -Title your post with a title for the story. -If you want to discuss a story start a new thread using the story title as the thread title. This thread is just for the stories.

Well, it was Christmas celebration at our church all week and I got hooked into singing again. I tried to say no but there I was standing at the right side of the altar with a mike pinned to my blouse. With the church full of people, organ music playing, and my dad in the front row, I sang "Oh holy night", and a few other songs for five nights in a row.. and each time I sang that particular song, I couldn't stop my eyes from welling up and sending a tear down the side of my face right in front of everyone no matter how hard I tried not to. I really got into it because I liked that song, and dad likes to hear me sing. I'm a very emotional girl and my eyes always give …

Well, I have this problem, perhaps if anybody could help me out...you don't gotta to.... Right now I myself am going to high school, and I have the problem with the english teacher. Everything was good until she ran her ass off to principal's office - to be honest, I thought she was a good teacher and a friend. Now I'm failing at this English course because I simply cannot talk to her and ask questions anymore like I used to - that's why I'm failing, I believe. Now I don't know what to do, what a bitch....I put my trust in her and she blew it. I don't want to fail and how am I going to proceed if I don't feel like asking her questios about the assignments, etc.? …

Carl Sagan died 10 years ago this day. Here's to a great scientist, author, videographer, and a vocal advocate of science education. His books changed my life.

Wow, what an honor! http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2732069

i was told i can find out the carbonation in a soda by holding a balloon over it. I wanted to know if you shake the soda. If you don't shake it nothing comes out. and also is whatevers in the ballon the carbonation.

Biochemistry is really cool but, I just can't figure out how we know this stuff. For example: Muscle physiology. How do we know the structures of the actin and miosin and how do we know about the calcium and entering and binding etc. It's not like you can just look at a muscle and see all of this. Is it jsut really good guesses or what? This may be more of a biology question.

Woo Hoo! I put in my leave chit today! I get the 22nd of December to the 2nd of January off!

There was a discussion in another thread about traffic exchanges. Since it was getting a little off-topic, I thought it would be a good idea to start a new thread. I believe that traffic exchanges are a good way to advertise a web site. I've been using them for about 5 years, and I've recently opened my own exchange. Some of them allow you to get thousands of different visitors to your web site everyday. As Cap'n Refsmmat mentioned, not all of them will be interested in your web site. However, since such a large number of people are sent to your web site, there is a good chance that you will reach many people who are interested. Even though I believe the concept…

Hello Shall be disappearing for the Holidays, so I extend my most hearty seasonal wishes to the distinguished ladies and gentlemen of this forum. Mr D